An interesting and enjoyable match against a classy person.
We traded east tickets (Karin in game 1 and GFF in game 2). We each got a big ticket once (Karin with a Van-Mon sighting and GFF with LA-Mia). There was blocking. There were locos and no locos. Starter always won until last. And, Karin drew the short straw and got poorer tickets and colors than I.

He was, in fact, disconnected after game 3 and could not get the connection to return. As is true for many who are in school, the term is coming to a close and the schedule is getting difficult.

The above are the facts as I received them. I extrapolate only a little in pointing out that term is coming to a close for him.

My suggestion at this point is to let the 3-0 stand as is for now. Play out the other matches and if games with tewe are needed, do what we can to get them together again to finish. Failing to do that, we may be forced to let the 3-0 stand as a win for AT or pursue whatever options are allowed by the rules.

game 1 113 - 71
Rufuz starts (random) I get to choose from den-elp, kans-hou and a crappy east ticket and decide to stay with -9 and try to play fast or block whatever the game developes. At around 34 cards I have 3 6es (including) 6 black on hand, 7 (or lokos, but only 2 green. Rufuz claims the first track: 6 black with 4! lokos. First alert on my side. He follows with 6 green ... I bet at least now it is clear there is something east-west .. and I use two green to block hou-no (first BIG mistake to use green here ... ) Rufuz goes one up to Dallas - and keeps going - me beeing not consequent in blocking the middle. Instead I take the 6 reds followed by 5 blue - I play the "WinneGedächtnisEinser" Atl - Nash and split all my nice 6es and use my lokos for three green ... *sigh* ending up with using 4 pink to miami instead of the 6 pink on top ..... with Rufuz finally getting both tix done (Dal-Ny and La Mi) - horrible start from my point of view ... and totally misplayed ...

game 2 104-105
start for me, fantastic tix to choose from: chic-no ssm-nash and hel-la .... i stay with the two east tix ... - Rufuz is quickly around NY (R:6 yellow, R:6 orange, M:6 pink, R:three red M:3 orange cic-pits,R:2 green pits-NY,) I can`t really stop him there without giving up my tix and have to let him go down 5 greens but then I force Rufuz all the way through the middle by blocking chic-kans and omaha-kans. Finally I make my tix including the 6 blank and the 6 reds, while Rufuz connects via denver, omaha and the b blues to chicago. When I end it looks like split longest and SE-NY together with den-pitts for Rufuz .... not enough if that is true ... with three tix to find I go for taking tix (in the match before Kasi found two of two possible tix - so I thought my chance wasn`t that bad :):)) - I find: .... den-pits SF-Atl and (luckily) Ny-Atl (only -6 !) - as Rufuz had to cancel Cal-SLC it gave me a veryyyyyyy short win!

game 3 40-106
Rufuz starts (random) - again not the selection of tix that I really prefer: SF-Atl, Cic-Fe and Dal NY ... *sigh - and - to top that all - it shows that Rufuz kept 3 tix .... three west tix I expect and decide to quickly forget that game but rather concentrate on the next then. At about 34 cards Rufuz starts with 6 yellow - for my type of play again too early ... and my colours then only allow me to go via the high north (having 6 withes and 6 for blank on hand) after my 6 whites Rufuz plays 4 greens down south from denver. Not expected but well ... I take the two den-SF and plan to go 5 red-4 pink to connect - then see how to get to dallas finally ??? ... Rufuz plays 4 pink .... another unexpected move. So I have to reconsider again and decide to first connect these two strange red dots in the east (cic and NY :)) via 3 orange 2 greens ... (only after I kept my middle options to connect by the 4 blues teher) I can`t really recall what Rufuz played then - I was just too busy and felt way too slow with going 1/2 via Kans/okla ... then the north ... finally I made my tix and even longest just to find out that the three tix Rufuz kept were se-ny, la-ny and dul-elp ... don`t get crossed with me, Rufuz - I think that was just a little bit too greedy )

game 4 69 - 77
I start, yet another great coice of tix ... Van-Fe, Ny-Atl and and another horrible ticket I don`t recall - but i decided to try a quick game with Van Fe 6es north and forget the 6 pts in the east. Yet the game developes very similar to the first game, again Rufuz starts with 6 black and 4 lokos ... then going through the middle of the board all the way to pits while I take three 6es up north, the 4 green and the two to fe. When Rufuz played 6 green I took the 6 reds - he played two hou-no, I answered with 4 yellow to atl that I had on hand. He then played the one Atl-nash, making it clear that he needed miami. At that time I had 8 trains to lay, 4 pink and three lokos on hand, with van-ssm build then down to Fe via orange and the rest. (no chance for longest - 4 yellow/6red in the south) Rufuz needed two turns to connect to Miami - 4 yellow, 5 blue. BUT - I was about 20 pts in tracks ahead ... I couldn`t connect without letting Rufuz connect as well ... Question was -19 for me vs -20 for Rufuz plus another 15 for pink for me ... so I ended the game which was the right decision giving me a short win, as Rufuz played Chic-NO together with LA-MI.

game 5 111 - 126
I start (random) - first time big tix that evening ... La-Mi, La Chic - very nice especially together with the start (and third time La-Mi in these 5 games). At 40 I have 6 black, 5 whites,5 orange, 4 yellow, 4 blue, 4 pink but only 2 reds and 4 green and 6 lokos - and am lucky that the blacks are still open - so I claim those. Rufuz follows with 6 yellow (making me quite happy). I play 6 orange (three reasons for that - guess them:)) Rufuz played 5 reds (he must have had tons of reds with my lonely two on hand) - I take an open blue and an open white. That seems to have forced Rufuz to go for the 4 blues to chicago - which was quite e reliefe for me again. I started to connect chicago the slow way via three twos, first okla-lr, then chic-stlouis, finally stlouis-lr. Rufuz blocke my 6 oranges with three red - and I conected via 5 yellow followed by the one nash-atl - thus beeing unblockable to miami unless Rufuz had another 5 blues, which he didn`t. I had enough time to play my remaining 6 pink then and even take an open couple to connet nash to stlouis thus having the 6 whites spare to claim another long track.

At least for me the games were very thrilling and to some extent unexpected results.